


but it always starts right over

by procrastinatingbookworm



Category: Constantine (TV)
Genre: (as usual), (it's under-negotiated because they Don't Talk To Each Other), (the kink is john liking being pushed around), Body Horror, Comic Book Violence, Consensual But Dubious, Conversations, Demons, Dissociation, Drinking, Drunk Sex, Dubious Consent, Emotions, Getting Back Together, Getting Together, How Do I Tag, Internalized Homophobia, Kink, Loss of Control, Love Confessions, M/M, Magic Made Them Do It (but it didn't really it just pushed them to act on their existing feelings), Mental Health Issues, Metaphors, Overstimulation, POV Alternating, POV Queer Character, They're a mess, Under-negotiated Kink, oops now they have to talk about it, sometimes it's about the a hook into an eye / a fish hook / an open eye, sometimes it's about the not to me not if it's you, way less awful than it sounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2020-07-25 18:18:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20030233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procrastinatingbookworm/pseuds/procrastinatingbookworm
Summary: Why John and Chas never share hotel rooms anymore.(for those of you reading the tags and raising your eyebrows: Chas almost dies, they have relieved drunken sex, and don't deal with the consequences)





	1. my mind it goes to the darkest places

**Author's Note:**

  * For [visiblemarket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/visiblemarket/gifts).

> Full credit to [visiblemarket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/visiblemarket/pseuds/visiblemarket) / [morethanonepage on tumblr](morethanonepage.tumblr.com) for [this post](https://morethanonepage.tumblr.com/post/186016748766), and the permission to have my way with it.
> 
> Heed the warnings, and enjoy!

Chas was a hero. He was a goddamn hero, the kind John could never be. John went into the life because he had nowhere else to go, with blood on his hands already. John wasn’t a _ hero _. He was a motherless, alcoholic, chain-smoking punk past his prime. His magic was an escape act, and the lives he saved were justification.

John never had a choice, but Chas came willingly. He left his wife and daughter behind, left his perfect life (never mind that Renee was vindictive and Chas was probably gay) and followed John sodding Constantine.

He took the Aurthurian miracle John planted on him and used it for good.

“You could have anything, y’know,” John said, one day. He unbuckled his seatbelt and put his feet up on the dash.

Chas turned down the radio, until just the thrumming bass was audible. “What do you mean?”

“Handsome boy like you. Sweet-talker. You could have any life you want. Go back to your missus, or take a man home. Have that white picket fence full-time.”

“It’s hard to keep a white fence clean,” Chas replied, and John’s stomach dropped with the dread of confronting a metaphor. “Every speck of dirt shows clear as day. You always get people squinting.”

“Prefer chain-link, do you?” John said, chest inexplicably tight. “Barbed wire?”

“That’s safer, at least. Doesn’t lie about its intentions.”

“I wouldn’t be sure about that, love,” John murmured, popping the collar of his coat and nestling into it, content to nap all the way back to the mill.

Chas let the topic go. He turned the radio back up and drove the cab in silence.

* * *

“String of child disappearances in newly developed town prompts police investigation,” Chas said, tossing the newspaper straight onto John’s plate of eggs, which Chas could tell from John’s face weren’t worth eating.

John went a peculiar shade of green that had nothing to do with his mediocre breakfast. “We don’t do kids, Chas.”

He stared at the newspaper’s headline for a moment. “An’ we don’t shit where we eat, either.”

“Well, I’m going to check it out,” Chas declared, feeling a sting of guilt when John’s face crumpled.

“You’re a cheating son of a bastard, you know,” John hissed, more annoyed than venomous. “How do you even know it’s up our alleyway?”

Chas fought the urge to grab John by his narrow hips and pull him close enough to kiss the wounded look from his face. “I’ve got a feeling about it.”

“That’s not worth bollocks and you know it,” John complained, but he was already putting on his coat.

* * *

“You gay, Chas?” John asked, once they were on the road.

“Dunno what that has to do with anything,” Chas replied. His voice seemed to want to be flat and unfeeling, but he’d always worn his heart on his sleeve, Chas had. He was still annoyed about John dragging his feet that morning, no doubt.

That was all right. John deserved it.

“I mean, you married a woman, but you don’t seem too happy about it.”

“I’m not doing this with you,” Chas warned. The cab jolted slightly; Chas must have hit the accelerator too hard. “I know you’ve got a problem working with kids, but that doesn’t mean you can be vindictive about it.”

“How do you know this is more than just some garden-variety pedo?” John asked. “It ain’t unheard of.”

“I told you. I’ve got a feeling about it. Plus, most of the kids were snatched from rooms with locked windows, and the parents have alibis.”

“Two poofters showing up to an investigation about missing kids. What could go wrong?”

Chas hit the brakes. John fell forward—he hadn’t bothered putting his seatbelt on, _ dammit _—and smacked into the dashboard, knocking the air from his lungs. “Fuck!”

“Quit it,” Chas said, in a tone that brooked no argument. “You’re not gonna change my mind, but you might piss me off enough to punish you.”

“Would you, Daddy?” John whinged, grinning.

Chas reached over and smacked the back of John’s head, knocking him flat against the dash once again.

John decided to shut up.

* * *

“Promising, that,” John said, as soon as they left the house of the most recent vanished child. Chas nodded absently. “The bit about the graveyard.”

“Guess we have something to do tonight.” Chas kept his voice low, so the people out on their porches wouldn’t overhear.

John lit a cigarette. “Bit funny, how ghosts come out at night. It’s like they want to be mistaken for nightmares or houses settling.

Chas nodded again, holding the passenger door open for John before rounding the cab to get into the driver’s seat. “You think it’s a ghost, then?”

“Would make sense. Resting place disturbed, and all.”

“Mm,” Chas acknowledged.

“We’re not cops,” John said, after a moment. “An’ if this turns out not to be our thing, we’re leaving an anonymous tip and going back out. There’s enough real evil in the world for us to deal with.”

“So it’s not real evil if it’s not a monster?” Chas said, slowly, and watched John’s eyes widen. He reached for the door handle, but Chas had already locked it.

“Chas,” John begged, quietly. “Don’t. You think I want to lose faith?”

“Didn’t know you had any.”

John closed his eyes and took a deep drag from his cigarette. “Humans figure themselves out. We’re stupid buggers, but we take care of our own.”

“Do we, now,” Chas said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah.” John slumped, huddling into his coat. “I hope it is a ghost. Not difficult, those buggers.”

“I didn’t know ghosts took kids,” Chas pondered. “What would it need them for?”

“Not a bloody clue, mate. But ghosts leading people astray isn’t unheard of. Though usually it’s violent deaths, not disturbed spirits.”

“Demons seem to have more of an affinity for kids than ghosts do.”

“If you say so,” John muttered, but he opened his eyes.

* * *

It wasn’t a ghost, or even a particularly nasty human.

It was a demon, gathering kids into a magically-hidden warehouse at the edge of the abandoned industrial district for some kind of sacrifice to increase its power.

John was bracing himself for Chas’ smug but understated _ I told you I had a feeling about it, _and preparing a snarky but useless retort when everything went to hell.

No one had bothered to tell John that the town had mined oil, and that there were still barrels of it in the empty warehouses.

No one had bothered to remind him that lighting candles in a warehouse full of oil barrels, wooden crates, and frightened children was a bad idea.

The summoning and exorcism went off without a hitch. What came after _ didn’t _.

John lost track of what happened after he shouted the last word of the exorcism. He was still blinking the afterimage of the flare the demon vanished in out of his retinas when he heard a child crying out and Chas shouting a warning.

When his vision came all the way back, the warehouse was in flames.

John had already made it out of the warehouse when he realized Chas hadn’t followed.

He was sending the kids running out in twos, glancing around to ensure that no one was left behind, and _ not fucking moving. _

John grabbed two kids by their shirt-collars and flung them as far as he could, getting them out of range of the fire.

He whirled around to call to Chas, and a child no older than eight with raggedly cut blond hair barreled into him, knocking him flat on his back.

“Chas!” John screamed, and the warehouse exploded.

* * *

Chas didn’t have time to think, or any chance to flee. All he could manage before the explosion was relief—John was safe.

* * *

“Chas!” John shouted. “Chas! Francis bloody Chandler, if there’s anything bloody left of you, give me a fucking sign!”

He’d been screaming into the burning rubble for the better part of an hour, ever since he’d come to, and there was nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing, nothing, fucking _ nothing. _ No unharmed Chas climbing out of the rubble, not even a battered body that would take time to recover but _ would _ recover—not even a surviving limb that could slowly drag the rest of the body together, like bloody movie magic.

There was no way magic could restore a splatter of blood to a living, breathing Chas.

All the kids survived. Even the one that knocked John over. They all had ringing in their ears and various bruises and enough trauma to require a lifetime of therapy, but they all survived. When John told them to start walking toward the inhabited part of town, they did.

John stayed behind, calling into the remains.

He couldn’t do this, he realized. If Chas didn’t—if he didn’t—

If Chas was dead, dead because of John, because John made him think he was a hero, because John’s blessing-curse made him think he was immortal, if Chas was dead in an explosion because John wasn’t on his toes, didn’t think that a demon would do what humans did already… 

John collapsed. His legs went out from under him like they’d been threatening to do, and he fell so hard he felt the knees of his trousers split and pain well up where his knees hit the concrete.

From his lower vantage point, he caught sight of something shining among the wreckage. John scrambled forward on his hands and knees and snatched it up.

It was Chas’ wedding ring. It was a simple silver band, inexpensive and unadorned. John closed his fingers around it, feeling the metal bite into his skin.

He pressed his forehead to the ground and screamed. No words this time, just noise.

Chas was dead and it was his own fucking fault.

Eventually, he dragged himself up. His bag was in the warehouse, with all his things, including his liquor.

All the money he had was in Chas’ back pocket. John had slipped it in—squeezed his arse while he was at it—when he’d sent Chas out of the library to fetch them lunch. 

John screamed again, and choked on it. He lit a cigarette.

The cab was intact, but John was a shit driver when he _ wasn’t _ out of his mind. Chas had been saying he’d teach him. Too late for that now.

There was no way he could get back to the house without driving. They weren’t as far as they usually went, but still. A smoker couldn’t walk that far.

He might’ve been able to hitchhike, if he wasn’t covered in grime and blood and shaking like a man out of hell.

Assuming he could even find his way there. He could navigate London half-dead, but not these long rural roads and too-similar houses, much less the woods leading back to the mill house.

At least they had rented a hotel room; somewhere for John to crawl back to.

There was even alcohol there, he was sure of it. A whole six-pack of Chas’ beer and half a bottle of whiskey.

John searched his pockets. Other than his lighter and fags, he had his hotel room key and a fiver. Lucky him.

He stumbled over to the cab. Chas owned a gun, but he left it in a box under the driver’s seat, just in case he needed it.

John took it out and made sure it was loaded.

Everything was a blur after that; stumbling through the abandoned district, buying gin at the corner store with the last of his money, the homeless woman telling him _ God bless _ when he dropped his change in her mug, until he made it back to the hotel room and was well on the way to being drunk.

Vaguely, he was aware that there was probably some kind of breakdown in order. His best friend was dead. Not just dead, but dead because of him. Because John hadn’t been paying enough attention.

It was all his fault.

John drained the last of the whiskey and moved on to the gin. If he was lucky, he’d be too drunk to think before he had to start on those god-awful beers.

* * *

Chas didn’t feel anything for most of the process of his body reassembling. His nerves were still reconstructing, and his brain was only partially intact. He was aware, as some kind of spirit, once the process began, but he had no sensation.

John was gone. Chas had felt him reaching out for a long time, draw closer and back away, but he had left now. Did he think Chas was dead?

There was no reason Chas wouldn’t be. There’d been nothing to heal, no body to recover.

Chas felt something pressing into the back of his head. No—he felt his head pressing itself back together. Bits of skull reassembling like pottery, squirming out from between bits of rubble and settling themselves into place, reconstructing the meninges as they went.

Chas wondered if he could survive diving into a volcano, or ground zero of a nuclear bomb. How much of his body needed to be left for the rest to recover?

By the time the connection between Chas’ eyes and his brain was restored, the sun had set. There were stars in the sky, bright pinpricks against Chas’ newly restored vision.

Sensation was starting to return, and Chas burned with it, his nerves as new and raw as an infant’s. Every movement of the breeze was like an electric current, every new patch of skin sparked with the sensation of the rubble beneath it.

Chas Chandler was _ alive. _ His organs were still reconstructing themselves in his chest, but he was alive. He had survived what no one should be able to live through, because of John.

John Constantine had saved his life.

Chas sat up. Pieces of him followed him up from the rubble—blood, digits, skin. He flexed his fingers, watching the grooves of his fingerprints work themselves back into new pink skin of his hands.

Fascinated, he watched the baby-softness cover itself with callouses, as if his soul remembered the work he’d done, and not just the shape of skin-muscles-nerves-bone.

Chas ran his new hands over his face. There were still open wounds, but it had mostly healed itself, skin cells multiplying like cancer.

That was an interesting question. Cancer. Would his body repair itself, but only after the cancer killed him? Or would his healing factor exacerbate the cancer, until it devoured him?

Maybe he’d find out someday.

Slowly, Chas stood up. The sensation of _ moving _ made him twitch, muscles relearning. He felt the breeze on his skin, the faint trickle of warmth from still-burning pieces of the warehouse.

The sun was starting to rise. Chas flinched away from it, hiding behind the cab until his new eyes were accustomed to the brightness. 

The cab. It was there, and unlocked. John wasn’t in it.

Chas pulled his jacket out of the back seat and pulled it on. None of his clothes had survived the explosion, which Chas supposed was all right. It wouldn’t do to have his Calvin Kleins melted onto his… 

The coat covered all the necessary places, at least. Chas knew he’d had the right idea, buying a long coat. And his keys were in the pocket.

That was lucky. He couldn’t imagine explaining _ that _ to a locksmith. ‘Yes, I lost my keys in an explosion. How did _ I _survive the explosion if my keys were in my pocket? Well, funny story…’

Chas laughed. It made his vocal chords twinge, so he laughed again, bracing himself against the cab door as the sun rose and his body re-learned how to feel without shaking.

* * *

John must have passed out at some point, because he woke up with a horrible taste in his mouth, craving a cigarette.

While he was asleep, the gun had fallen out of his coat pocket. John stepped over it on his way to get the beer out of the fridge. He didn’t have much whiskey left, so he’d have to spread it out.

God, he hated beer. But he couldn’t be sober now. It would kill him, like he’d killed Chas.

The sun was rising. It wasn’t fucking fair.

John pried the cap off a beer bottle and spilled some onto the carpet. “Here’s to you, Chas,” he murmured, and drank.

* * *

Chas was alive. He was driving the cab fifty miles an hour down a 35mph road and he was _ alive. _

He could feel the wind, the leather of the wheel, the brush of his coat against his arms and chest. The sun in his eyes. The smell of John’s cigarettes.

John, who had saved him.

There was no way John had made it back to the mill house without a car, so he must have gone to the hotel.

Chas screeched the cab to a halt and got out, barely remembering to lock it behind him. The key fob made his fingers tingle with sensation.

There was barely anyone out this early. The few that were gave his bare legs and feet a glance, then moved on. They were blue-collar workers on the opening shift, they’d seen stranger.

Chas blinked, dizzy, and he was outside the hotel room, knocking, and the door was opening.

* * *

John didn’t know why he opened the door. He was a wreck, and who that he knew would find him here? It was probably cleaning, here to disturb his bloody rest… 

“John,” Chas said.

John saw himself stumble back more than he felt himself hitting the ground. He saw his throat spasm and his hand rise to cover his mouth more than he felt the sob trying to claw its way out of his throat.

He couldn’t imagine that Hell was any worse than this.

By the time he’d broken out of the haze of dissociated panic and settled into his body again, his eyes were stinging.

It surprised him—he’d never been a crier—but he couldn’t bloody _ bear _ it. 

He’d hallucinated before; movement out of the corners of his eyes, flashes of light, distant sounds, the occasional bout of sleep paralysis but never like this, never so vivid.

Chas stepped into the room and shut the door.

John blinked, and blinked again. He wiped his eyes. Hallucinations couldn’t shut doors.

“Chas?” he whispered, feeling a stab of pain in his stomach. “I’m dreaming, aren’t I?”

“John,” Chas repeated, low and reverent. He knelt beside John, his coat falling open.

John caught sight of what was beneath the coat, and _ laughed _. He let his head tilt back, shaking with mirth until he ran out of breath. “Of course.”

“_ John, _” Chas said, hungrily, shedding his jacket and gathering John into his arms. “I’m alive.”

“Like hell you are,” John choked, wiping at his eyes again. “There wasn’t even a body.”

“You saved me,” Chas insisted, and John’s stomach twisted with pain.

John made a desperate sound, burying his face against Chas’ bare shoulder, letting the coat be pulled from his shoulders. “You’re alive.”

“I want you, John,” Chas had tossed John’s coat away and started on his shirt buttons. Chas was naked. Healing factor didn’t work on clothes. John knew that.

Chas was _ naked _. 

John was well on his way to joining him, with how enthusiastically Chas was pulling at his shirt.

“Want me?” John croaked, unwinding his tie with shaking fingers. “Could have told me that before you died.”

Chas lifted John easily, setting him on the bed and starting on the zipper of his trousers. He pinned John to the bed with one hand on John’s heaving chest.

“Bloody hell,” John managed. There was nothing else he could say. Chas hooked his fingers over John’s waistband and pulled down both pants and trousers in one go. 

John groaned, half in pain at the pressure Chas was putting on his chest, and half in broken pleasure as Chas’ fingers grazed the base of his cock.

“How long?” John gasped out, when Chas began to stroke him, fingers brushing unbearably gently against John’s hardening cock.

“You first,” Chas replied, and stopped touching John, which didn’t seem fair.

John made what was supposed to be a disdainful sound, but came out as a mewl of loss. Chas was _ right there, _ alive and unharmed and _ beautiful _, and he wasn’t touching John, and it wasn’t bloody fair.

“Oh god, _ god, _ ” John whined. “Forever. Since I met you, god, you’re perfect, Chas, you’re _ perfect, _ please touch me.”

Chas leaned over to the bedside dresser with unbearable slowness, pulled open the drawer, and took out the lube.

* * *

Chas could feel _ everything _. 

He felt in a way he hadn’t since he was a virgin, hyper-aware of his own heartbeat, and John’s heartbeat under his palm, riotous with arousal.

His knees skidded on the cheap sheets as he settled himself, slicking his palm and cock methodically with lube.

John was crying out with want beneath him, and he _ yowled _ when Chas hitched John’s legs up over his shoulders and pulled him closer by the hips.

“Shh,” Chas murmured, though he himself felt anything but soothed, pulse pounding in his cock as he lined himself up with John’s arse.

“Want me like this?” John bit out, struggling slightly, but seeming to enjoy himself nonetheless. “Bare? No condom, no prep?”

“Your ass can take it, can’t it, Johnny?” Chas asked, impatient. “It’s a whore’s ass. Or _ arse _, as you’d say.”

John moaned softly, struggling futilely, cock hard and twitching between his thighs. “Won’t argue with you on that one, Chas. But tell me, before we start… how long have _ you _ wanted _ me _?”

_ Since I saw you onstage, with that fire in your eyes. Since you first smiled at me. From the moment you shook my hand. _

“Forever,” Chas murmured. He took John’s cock in his lubed hand and stroked gently.

John relaxed, moaning, and Chas drove into him needily, crashing their hips together and burying himself in John.

Chas knew John must have cried out, because he could feel how ragged John’s breathing was, hitched and whiny, but Chas was lost in his own mind, the sensation of John surrounding him as overwhelming as anything he had felt since his rebirth. Every movement was white-hot, pleasure and pain at once.

“Good?” Chas asked, holding John’s cock in one hand and his hip in the other, rocking against him.

John nodded enthusiastically, hips twitching upward. When Chas pushed into him, he bit his lip, breathing hard through his nose.

Chas pulled out most of the way and fucked into John again, making them both gasp.

“You’re so big,” John whined. “So big, Chas, so good to me.”

Chas felt a sudden rush of feeling, a need to pull John close, to protect the fragile man he’d found when he entered the room, drunk and grieving.

“It’s only fair,” Chas said, stroking John’s side tenderly. “You saved me. Saved yourself, and those kids and me.”

“Ohgod,” John choked out. “It was my fault.”

“You saved me,” Chas repeated, squeezing John’s cock for a moment before starting to stroke him again. “You made sure nothing could kill me. Even that.”

“Chas,” John said, “Chas, please fuck me.”

Chas fucked him. He held John steady with one hand, jerked him off with the other, and _ fucked _him.

John squirmed beneath him, begging and slurring even though he had exactly what he wanted, thighs trembling on either side of Chas’ face. His expression twisted exquisitely with every moan.

Chas came, blinded with pleasure, calling John’s name.

John was still whimpering underneath him, so Chas bent his head, taking John into his mouth and sucking at him, until John came with a sound suspiciously akin to a sob.

“John?” Chas asked, when he had swallowed and gotten his voice back.

“You’re alive,” John muttered, letting his legs slide weakly from Chas’ shoulders, reaching up to him. “You’re alive.”

Chas let himself collapse slowly, until he was resting beside John.

John wrapped his arms around Chas’ neck and buried his face in Chas’ shoulder, gasping.

Chas held him, relieved, trembling with sensation, muscles quivering with aftershocks.

He was exhausted, but it wasn’t until John stopped shaking in his arms that Chas managed to fall asleep.

* * *

John woke up more comfortable than he ever remembered being in a hotel bed, and actually _ refreshed _ to boot; not just somewhere in the realm of _ less exhausted _. Maybe it had something to do with how he was tucked up against Chas’ back, warm and safe between the walk and Chas’ bulk.

Chas seemed to think he was the little spoon, apparently. No matter that he had half a foot on John.

Chas. _ Chas. _

“Chas,” John choked out, suddenly flooded with relief. “You’re okay.”

Chas was silent for a long time. John pressed his face between Chas’ shoulder blades, feeling like he might melt into the sheets. Chas was _ alive. _

“John,” Chas finally said, low and rumbling. “I’m married.”

John sat up. Once again, he was observing from above, watching himself shake and swallow and reach for Chas, then recoil.

“Magic makes us do things we don’t mean, sometimes,” he heard himself say. “You’d just been reborn, you were craving sensation. I don’t blame you for it.”

Chas was quiet, but he sat up too, facing away from John.

“I was drunk,” John said, vaguely desperate. “Let’s just chalk it up as a mistake and move on.”

Still, silence. John’s chest ached.

“You can have the first shower. I’ll strip the bed.”

Chas stood, unfolding like the shifting of a mountain. He walked to the bathroom without a word, then paused in the door.

“Thanks.”

The door shut between them.

John curled in on himself, into the warmth Chas had left behind, and gave himself until he heard the shower turn on to grieve the ruination of everything he’d ever wanted.


	2. thought it might be real but it isn't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Avoiding the consequences doesn't work forever.

It would have suited them both to never speak of it again, but, as with all things John Constantine got involved in, it didn’t work out like anyone hoped.

It was only after things settled down that either of them had the mental wherewithal to bring up subjects as awkward—not to mention  _ heavy _ —as divorce.

“Why’d she end it, anyway?” John asked, at the tail-end of a conversation over breakfast about Chas visiting Brooklyn the weekend after next.

“I’m sorry?” Chas said, in a warning tone that indicated he was apt to lash out if John didn’t make the next sentence worth his while. 

“I mean, the official reason is that you’re absentee. But I don’t think she’d give up the chance of Geraldine having a normal life for something like that.”

Chas was silent for a long moment, tapping his fork against his plate. John felt an ache bloom in his ribs, like it always did when he watched Chas for too long.

There was a mundane beauty to how Chas existed. Anyone could see that he was handsome, but it would take more observation than a passing glance to really  _ understand _ him, to see beyond the solid form and to the warmth beneath, settled like a shield around Chas’ wounded heart. 

Chas could have turned bitter, with what he’d been though. He could’ve walked the line between man and monster like John did, and John wouldn’t have held it against him, as frightened as he would have been by a cruel, vengeful Chas.

Instead, Chas decided on kindness. He built himself up by making sure no one else would suffer like he had.

That explained a lot about why he put up with John. The poor man could never resist the kind of brokeness and baggage someone like John carried around.

(Maybe that’s why Chas’d left Renee without the fight that John knew he was capable of; not enough suffering for him to really feel needed.)

“I think the last straw was losing my wedding ring,” Chas said.

All the blood drained from John’s face.

He’d forgotten the ring, after he picked it up. To be fair, it had been the least important thing on his mind. 

He’d slipped it into his pocket—probably out of some sense of desperate need to hold on to some piece of Chas, knowing his grief-addled mind—and gone to get fabulously drunk.

But somehow, despite the usual disdain John treated his coat with (tossing it to the ground, getting monster blood on it, laundromats), the ring had remained in his pocket.

Not only in his pocket, but in an accessible enough pocket that John’s fingers would occasionally brush against it, sending a jolt through his chest at inopportune times, but only when it wasn’t really possible to start that kind of conversation with Chas.

Sometimes John thought the bloody coat had a mind of its own.

It had been a thousand quid, after all. Or would have been, if he’d bought it.

Chas noticed John’s blindsided expression, and jumped to the obvious conclusion. “What did you do?”

John opened his mouth to make an excuse, but no words came out.

“John. What did you do?”

John reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring. He let it clatter onto the table.

Chas picked it up, turning it over in silent examination.

“Mate,” John said, when Chas stood up. “Hear me out, Chas—”

Chas slammed the door behind him.

John leaned back in his chair and blinked. 

“Shit.”

He let himself wallow, just for a moment, let the terror of the closed door wash through him, then scrambled to his feet.

Maybe before, John would have let him storm off. 

Before Chas had divorced his wife and moved fourteen hours away from his daughter. Before Chas had dozens of other souls to bear the weight of. Before John had damned himself.

Before, when John could be sure that Chas would come back.

John chased Chas down the driveway. As expected, he was going toward Zed’s truck.

“Chas, hold on, all right?” John said, getting his fingers hooked into Chas’ cuff, then around his wrist. “Hold on, just—”

Chas kept walking toward the truck, his long strides nearly dragging John off his feet. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Just let me explain!” John yelped, putting himself in front of Chas. Finally, rather than trample John into the gravel, Chas stopped, staring at him in what could only be disgust.

“Please?” John tacked on, a little helplessly.

“You stole my wedding ring?” Chas’ voice was higher than usual, twisted up in his throat. “I knew you were selfish, but that’s a new low, John.”

“I picked it up,” John muttered. “The first time you got blown to bits. Remember?”

Chas shifted on his feet. “Yeah. I remember.”

“I put it in my coat pocket, and I forgot to give it back, and I’m  _ sorry _ —” 

Chas twitched when John apologized, opening his mouth to object, which hurt a little, but John deserved it. He wasn’t much for apologies.

“I’m sorry,” John repeated, finding his throat dry, voice cracking slightly. “I had other things on my mind.”

“Like fucking me?” Chas asked, clipping the word to the top of his mouth.

John laughed, low and sharp, and lit a cigarette. “I wasn’t the one doing the fucking, was I?”

“You took advantage of me,” Chas said, in a voice that brooked no argument. “You were lonely and guilty and you wanted a fuck, and I was off-kilter enough to let you.  _ And _ you stole my wedding ring.”

John blinked. “I thought you were dead, mate. I thought I’d killed you, and it was tearing me up inside. I was as drunk on liquor as you were on life. Whatever happened, neither of us had an advantage.”

“Fine,” Chas sighed, running a hand through his hair. “And the ring?”

“I forgot about it,” John said, honestly. “And then I realized I had it, but I didn’t have time for  _ this _ conversation, so I put it off, and I’m  _ sorry, _ all right?”

Chas raised an eyebrow. “Are you?”

John caught his breath, and went on. “I might’ve fucked up your marriage, and I might be a selfish, unrepentant bastard about it, but I didn’t mean to do it over a misunderstanding.”

“It wouldn’t have changed anything,” Chas acknowledged, sighing, dragging his fingers through his hair once again.

Abruptly, disorientingly, John wanted  _ his _ hand to be there, tangling in Chas’ thick curls. He wanted to pull Chas’ head down until John could reach his mouth and kiss him sweet and sure and sorry.

Unable to stop himself, John reached out.

Chas stepped back, and turned away. “I’m going for a drive. I’ll be back later.”

John’s stomach dropped. He squeezed his eyes shut, so he didn’t have to watch Chas go.

Chas wasn’t a liar—he  _ would _ be back. That didn’t help the pain of rejection, crawling up through John’s chest like it had any right to be there.

Like John had any right to be upset by getting what he deserved.

*

Chas didn’t go far. He wasn’t packed to travel, and he didn’t want to, either. Leaving John, as good an idea as it sometimes seemed, wouldn’t solve anything.

What had broken would still be broken, even if Chas tried to recant.

John would still have a hook in Chas’ heart.

Chas parked at a bar that had only just opened and sat in the cab for a while, tracing his fingers over the steering wheel and watching through the bar windows until all the stools were down and the televisions were turned on.

One of the bartenders—a tall black man with shoulders broader than Chas’, which was a feat—gave him what was probably an appreciative once-over when he walked in.

Chas met his gaze, and looked away.

Chas wasn’t the kind of hypocrite that would storm out on an argument about fidelity—or whatever that squabble had been about—and go find a hookup.

Down at the far end of the bar, a woman with a blonde pixie cut and stockings uncrossed her legs.

Well, the night was young. Maybe Chas would change his mind.

Chas ordered a beer, sat down to watch whatever trite shit was on the bar televisions, and waited.

*

John drank.

It wasn’t the best coping mechanism. Neither was sulking on the living room couch wrapped in the quilt from Chas’ bed, watching the mirror over the mantle as if the Schadenfreude of watching his past self in even greater misery would somehow comfort him.

But here he was.

Chas  _ would _ come back. He’d said he would, so he would.

Chas could do a lot—he could fix just about anything, given enough time, for example. He could feed an army (or at least a small family) out of the barest of fridges. He could win just about any bar fight.

But he couldn’t lie. Not to anyone, really, but much less to John, who knew him better than he knew himself.

He’d come back. As sure as he did when he died, whole and hearty and pissed off, but it was better than nothing.

Chas was better than almost everything, in John’s opinion, but it wasn’t like he could  _ say _ that.

John took another sip of whiskey.

Chas would be back.


	3. drawn right back, moth to the flame

For a while, over his third or fourth beer, when he was tipsy enough to think clearly, Chas considered not going back.

The bar wasn’t too crowded, but there were a few people giving him looks from across the bar. From behind it, too, for that matter. He could pick someone up, go to their place.

(Could leave from there. Back to Brooklyn, or to London. He’d built a life from scratch before, why not again?)

It was just after ten at night when Chas really started getting hit on. When the beer goggles went on, John had said, once.

Chas thought it probably had more to do with inhibitions, but it didn’t really matter. Ten o’clock, cue the bad pickup lines and semi-indecent groping.

Flirting back and forth with a waifish blonde who’d had a few too many drinks and clearly wanted to climb Chas like a tree, Chas realized he was an idiot.

“Sorry,” he told the blonde, pulling out his wallet. “Here, buy yourself a drink. I have to go.”

They blinked at him, owlishly. “I’m sorry?”

“This…” Chas handed them a twenty. “This isn’t what I want.”

“Okay,” they said. “You do you. Thanks for the money.”

Chas found a clear spot on the bar and set his drink down. “Yeah.”

Hopefully, he’d be home before John was too spectacularly drunk, though he doubted it.

The drive to the bar had blurred by, but the drive back to the mill house was agonizingly long.

_ John is going to be so drunk, _ Chas thought, flicking on his lights as he turned from the moderately well-lit street onto the barely even paved side street leading to the millhouse.  _ So miserably, belligerently drunk that he’ll be impossible to talk to, and I’ll take pity on him and go to bed, and we’re never going to talk about this again, I can just add it to the list of things we can’t look each other in the eyes over. _

John  _ was _ drunk, when Chas got in. He was sprawled sideways on the couch, half-empty whiskey bottle in one hand, cigarette in the other.

Chas shut his eyes for a moment, breathed in and out, and opened his eyes again.

John was staring at him, like he was some kind of Messiah, and Chas suddenly felt exhausted.

“Are you going to do this every time?” he asked, taking the bottle from John and setting it aside. When John just blinked at him, Chas snatched the cigarette too, and took a hasty, choking drag.

“Do what?” John asked, while Chas was coughing. He moved his feet so Chas had space to sit on the couch.

“Sulk.”

“I could be worse,” John countered, reaching for the cigarette.

_ Could you? _ Chas thought. He stubbed the cigarette out and reached for John, shifting forward on the couch.. “I know.”

John’s eyes fell shut. “I’ll be the first to tell you, Chas, I’m no good at this.”

“Neither am I,” Chas said, hoisting John into his lap. He tucked his chin over John’s shoulder, inhaling the smell of nicotine and alcohol on him. “Guess that makes us even.”

John scoffed, his breath loud and hot against Chas’ neck. “I dunno, mate. My latest ex was a heroin addict I cast a hunger demon into, yours is a perfectly respectable—”

“My latest ex is you, John.” Chas said, fast and sharp, pressing his lips against the column John’s throat. He felt John swallow, hard. “And I want to change that.”

John pulled back. “Oh?” He scoured Chas’ expression, eyes narrowed, searching for meaning.

Chas kissed him.

“Oh,” John said, when they broke apart. “ _ Oh. _ ”

Chas grabbed John’s wrists before his clever fingers could get anywhere near Chas’ fly. “No more drunk sex. Tomorrow, okay?”

John was looking at Chas like he’d lit the stars, eyes wide and glassy. “Okay,” he said, and leaned back in.


End file.
